Becoming A Prince
by buckice
Summary: He was just sitting there next to her, just chuckling softly to her story, smiling with a smile she had never seen before, one she knew that he had never revealed to anyone before and when he winked at her slightly, she felt her heart flutter. Suddenly sh
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my computer.

This takes place in the summer before Rory starts high school.

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She seemed a little more tense than usual. Heck, being more tense than usual only meant a lack of a smile from the overcaffinated, overly optimistic woman. She was sitting at a table by the window and though the lunch rush was heightening furiously around her, she wasn't bothered a bit. Her gaze was fixed out the window, possibly not even on something specific, but just outside. His gaze was fixed on her.

"More coffee?" Luke asked, walking up to her table, as if his entire place of work wasn't drowning in customers and Caesar wasn't shouting out orders like a madman. Somehow in all the fury, Luke's was the one clear voice to her and she looked up at him.

"Oh, uh, yeah, coffee. Coffee's good," she answered, still seeming distracted. He poured the coffee watching the odd little movements of the index finger of her right hand as it traced various patterns on the tabletop.

"You okay?"

"What? Hmm? Oh me?" He rolled his eyes.

"No, the other person I'm pouring coffee for, aiding her along to her home six feet under." She grinned.

"I'm fine."

"Really? 'Cause you seemed a little…preoccupied today."

She folded her arms on the table in front of her, turning her chair slightly so that she faced him. "Well now I am completely focused on you, Duke." He groaned.  
"I thought you gave up on that name two years ago when you decided you liked me." She sat back as he realized what he just said. "I mean, you know, that you decided that I wasn't in the same league as Stalin."

He wondered for a second how that had come off to her until she smiled. Her eyes lit up and he was instantly relaxed. That power she had in just a look, he wasn't sure how it worked, but it definitely worked for her.

"You know, I think that guy over there is about to get up and leave without paying," she said, motioning with her chin. He glanced over and groaned.

"Jeez."

He almost slammed the coffee pot on her table, but caught himself before it reached the wood and smashed all over, and just set it down gently. She shook her head in amusement, watching him as he walked over to the customer. Undoubtedly, the customer was going to wish he had never tried to jip Luke Danes out of some cash. She watched the color drain from the man's face as Luke barked at him, grabbing the money out of his hand, and marching him to the door. As the door closed behind the man, Luke sighed in frustration. Hearing an odd sound from the table next to him, he glanced over to find Lorelai grinning and clapping, enjoying the show.

"Well I'm officially out of my funk!" she exclaimed. He rolled his eyes, snatching the coffee pot off of the table and walking it back to its home. In his absence she turned back to the window, clearly not completely in a good mood.

For the next hour, he watched as she traced the rim of her coffee cup, checked her pager about eight times and then put her head in her hands for a short time. It seemed inordinately out of character for her. Lorelai had always been that brightness in his day, the ever smiling, cheerful woman he had known for three years now. Though he had seen her almost everyday in those three years providing coffee, complaints and the occasional danish, he was still unsure of how to define their relationship. True, deep down he thought she was the perfect woman, the woman of his dreams, the one for him, but it seemed obvious to him that she didn't feel the same. Why would she? All that he had ever presented to her was a grumpy, irritable, pessimistic man whose entire life revolved around flipping burgers and pouring coffee. She deserved more than that. She deserved a prince who would treat her like the angel she was, who would listen to her and understand, who would cheer her up when she was sad, who would laugh at all her jokes and pleasure in the moments of just being with her.

"You're not out of your funk," he said, finding himself next to her table again with the coffee pot in his hand.

She glanced at him again and snickered. "No, but if that's what it takes to get you to say the word funk, I'll be in this mood more often," she teased. He looked around the diner, finding that most of the lunch crowd was gone.

"Mind if I join you?"

"Are you going to drink coffee as well?" He gave her a look. She motioned to the empty chair next to her and he set the pot back down on the table, lowering himself into the chair.

"So what's with the long face?" Luke asked.

"I'm a horse." He looked confused for a moment before he realized she was trying to make a joke. Noticing that he didn't seem humored by her remark, she sighed, her smile slowly disappearing. "Christopher invited Rory to visit him in California for a month in July."

"And you don't want her to go," he reasoned. Lorelai shrugged.

"Yes, maybe… I don't know…" She twisted her hands in front of her anxiously. "I had this whole plan, you know? She's starting high school in the fall. When she graduates high school we have this whole plan of traveling around Europe, backpacking, seeing the sights I never got to see. So I thought this summer we could spend July traveling around the US. Like National Lampoon's Vacation, minus crazy Chevy Chase."

"You can still do that, there's more to the summer than July."

"Thank you Julius Caesar."

"Huh?"

"You know, the Roman guy who created the calendar." She waved her hand around as she was saying this, as if that would help him understand. "Anyways, no, there's really not much more to my summer than July. It's mid June now and Rory's just getting done with school and August is a big month at the Independence. No matter how much Mia loves me, she'd never let me leave for a long time in August." Luke sighed, folding his hands on the table in front of him.

"So did Rory say yes already?" Luke asked after a moment.

Lorelai shook her head. "No, but she will. Oh she will. She doesn't know what I planned. I was hoping to spring it on her, spontaneity is my thing." Lorelai shrugged. "I don't know, I mean most of the time he's not around. He doesn't call. He doesn't often make time for her and now he is and she'll be all excited and I would just be the worst person ever if I kept her with me instead of giving her that one chance to spend time with her father. I mean you might as well shove pills down my throat and call me Judy." Luke cleared his throat, knowing that he's going to need an explanation for this one.

"Judy?"

"Yeah, Garland. She would've been caught dead before letting Liza spend time with her father and Sid Luft almost never got to see Lorna and Joey until Lorna begged to live with him." She sighed, rubbing her forehead. "But I can just imagine my life here without her. A big empty house that I've never lived in without Rory. A big empty town that I've never lived in without Rory. All I would want is to be far far away from here."

"So go," Luke suggested. She frowned.

"Go?"

"Yeah, go. Go on vacation."

"Alone? It would be like… sad or something. Like… look Lorelai, do you see the Liberty Bell? Oh yes, Lorelai, it's nice and big and bronzed. Dirty! Oh yes, Lorelai that was dirty. Lorelai, should we go see-" Luke covered her mouth quickly with his hand just to shut her up, although he was amused by her various voices. After he removed his hand, she stuck out her bottom lip and pouted playfully.

"Then take someone with you," he suggested after she finally quieted.

"Why? You wanna come?"

He stared at her, wondering if she really knew what she just asked. Did she really just ask him to go on a trip with her? Was he just asked on a vacation alone with Lorelai Gilmore?

"Okay," he agreed.

She glanced up at him, suddenly hearing the seriousness in his voice. Did he really just agree to go on vacation with her? He's just… and she realized that she has no idea what he is to her. He was just the proprietor and she was his customer. They were friends, sure, but what proprietor wasn't friendly with his regular customers? Somewhere inside, her brain shouted the obvious answer.

"Okay," she responded, hoping that the shock she was feeling wasn't registering on her face. "Well, um… do you have any specific place you want to go?"

"I've never been anywhere. The beach a few times with my parents when I was young and Florida when my uncle needed help moving." She nodded.

"So anywhere but the beach and Florida, got it."

"Where have you gone? We don't want to go somewhere that you've gone," he said.

"Somewhere between the moon and New York City." He looked at her and she grinned again, loving pushing his buttons. "I haven't really been anywhere either except New York City and Hartford."

"So anywhere in the US but New York City, Hartford, the beach and Florida."

"Should be easy to find some place to visit."

"So when does Rory leave?" he asked.

She furrowed her eyebrows trying to remember her conversation with Christopher. "The 30th of June."

"Then we leave on the first."

Suddenly she smiled, the first real smile he had seen out of her the whole day. He wondered if she was just excited to get out of Stars Hollow as soon as Rory left or if it was possible she was excited to travel with him. Did it really matter? He was about to spend a month traveling with her, just him and Lorelai, and he just knew there was a lot of cold showers ahead of him in the future.

"Well, work calls," she decided getting up, dropping a few bills on the table as payment for her coffee and danish, and walked to the door. "Hey this'll be fun. I finally get to see what happens when dinerman becomes vacation. Luke, vacation man, esquire, never without his flannel and compass." Ending her joke with a deep male announcer voice, she winked.

"You sure you're okay with this?"

"Ug! Rory! Love of my life! Child of my heart! We're walking through this airport dragging your incredibly heavy carry-on behind us because you packed a library's worth of books for a three and a half hour flight and you're asking me if I'm okay with this?"

Only then did Rory notice that her mother really was dragging her carry on behind her and groaned, yanking on Lorelai's arm until she stopped in her tracks. With an annoyed sigh she handed Lorelai her small bag and bent down to pick up the larger carry on in her own hands.

"I'm just saying. I'm going to spend the summer in hot, sunny California and you'll be here."

"No, I won't be. I'm going on that trip with Luke, remember?" Rory snickered.

"Yes and I can't believe it. You just barely forgave him for putting tomatoes on your burger last week. How are you two ever going to get through a trip without killing each other?"

"We'll use plastic knives." Rory rolled her eyes.

"Mo-om," she whined.

Lorelai smirked, wrapping an arm around her daughter's shoulders. "You should not be spending this trip worried about me. Have fun. See the sights. Make your dad let you see him in a bathing suit, cuz if you want to know who really looks like Casper, it would be your dad."

Reaching her gate, Rory stopped, grabbing her mother's arm again. She knew her mother so well to understand that often Lorelai's humor was just a cover she used to keep people from knowing what she was really feeling. Though Lorelai's face was lit up and she had a huge grin on, Rory wondered if there was more to it.

"We've never been apart this long before," Rory said. Lorelai pressed her lips together and nodded.

"We've never been apart before at all, except that time I got snowed in at the inn and you ended up staying the night at Babette's, sleeping with the cats." Lorelai played with Rory's hair thoughtfully. "You going to miss me?" Rory instantly saw this as her mother's way of telling her that she is upset but trying to hide it. She dropped her bag to the ground, throwing her arms around her mother.

"More than Diane on Cheers," Rory answered, hugging her mom tight. As she finally pulled back, Lorelai gripped Rory's upper arms tightly, pressing her lips together she wouldn't cry. "Be nice to Luke."

Lorelai tried to smile, choking back her tears in the process. "I'm always nice to Luke." Rory rolled her eyes.

"Liar." They hear Rory's flight being called and Rory took a deep breath. "Okay, I'd better go." Lorelai nodded, slowly letting go of her daughter. Rory picked up her bags, not taking her eyes off her mother as she walked away.

"Call me. Call me a lot," Lorelai said.

"I will."

"Especially Tuesdays." Rory smiled.

"Cause we're Tuesday people," Rory agreed. She dropped her bags and ran back over to Lorelai, throwing her arms around her mom one last time. Giving Lorelai a kiss on the cheek, she let go, wiping her eyes and walked back to her bags. Lorelai gave her a nod, hoping that she took it as a signal that she should turn around and get on the plane.

As she watched her daughter board the plane, she considered Rory's insistence that she be nice to Luke. Her daughter, who was boarding a plane to spend a month with her father, had taken a second in their last moment together to think of Luke. But then again, Luke had always been there for Rory whenever she needed him. Suddenly it dawned on Lorelai that Luke was possibly the male that was most involved in their lives and she wondered for a moment how that had happened. How had he gone from their coffee provider to the man who was always there at the drop of a hat? Now, again, he was there, going on vacation with her, just so she wouldn't be sad and alone. She wondered if he was doing it all for her or if he was getting something out of it too.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

"So you know where you're going, right?"

"Jeez, Lorelai, for the eighteenth time, I know where I'm going. I'm not using the north star to guide me," he grumped.

They had been on the road since nine in the morning and now, two hours later, they were starting to realize how odd it was to be trapped in a car together for hours on end. Sure, they had been friends for a few years, but that friendship mostly took place in the diner or at Miss Patty's during town meetings. In fact, she couldn't think of a moment that she had been alone with Luke for this long in the entire three years of their relationship. It was an odd thing, being alone with this man, who normally came off as a character not unlike Scrooge, but now it seemed that there was more to him than that, possibly more than she could have imagined.

"Hey we should play the license plate game!" Lorelai exclaimed.

"The license plate game?" She gasped, her mouth dropping open.

"Oh my God, is it possible that you have never heard of the license plate game?" He shrugged. "Oh man, you have lived in a cave your entire life. I'm so glad I convinced you to get out a bit."

Luke sighed, adjusting himself in his seat. He didn't want to admit that it really was the first time he had gone on an actual vacation from Stars Hollow since his mother got sick. Telling her the influence she had on him would only give her leave to try to convince him to do more things that he wouldn't want to do. Not that he wouldn't do them for her. For Lorelai, he knew, there was little he wouldn't do.

"Tell me about this game."

She squealed with glee, clapping her hands together. "Oh this is going to be so much fun!"

"I'm getting more excited by the moment," he deadpanned.

She gasped again. "Dirty!" He rolled his eyes. She turned to face him, tucking her left leg under herself as she prepared to explain the rules. "Okay there are two versions but we're going to go with the cool people's version."

"Fantastic."

"You just go through the alphabet finding license plates that start with each other. Like… there! That's AMD, so A is done." Luke raised his eyebrows.

"And this is fun?"

"Or we could play the version where you have to say the capital of the state that's listed on the license plates. That's the version Rory likes, that little smartie of mine." Lorelai smiled to herself, shaking her head.

Luke glanced over at her to see that the smile had disappeared from her face and she was now playing with the bracelet on her wrist. Well if she needed to use this trip as a way to keep from missing Rory, he was all right with that. He could hope for nothing more than to be the one she can go to during rough times, but he will never stop wishing it could be more than that.

Looking back out the window, he watched some of the cars pass. "BDR," he said.

She glanced up at him, her eyes suddenly lit up. "See I knew you'd get into it!"

"I thought this was trip around the US, how did we end up in Canada?" Luke asked as he parked the truck and they both got out.

"We talked to the security guy and he said we didn't seem like mass murderers or drug smugglers so we drove on through."

"But you said we were traveling around the US."

She crossed her arms ever her chest and glared at him. "If you're going to act like a baby this whole trip, then fine, stay by the car. I'm going to go see the falls and actually enjoy myself." With a huff, she strutted across the road to the lookout point.

He watched as she folded her arms over the rail, staring out at the falls. Immediately he felt guilty. He had joined her on the trip to keep her mind off things and all he had done so far was give her more things to think about. Try as she may to be that bright optimistic woman he always knew, he saw it in her eyes, in the way she leaned against the rail like the weight of the world was on her shoulders, she was having trouble continuing to keep it in. All he could do is just be there, give her a chance, and maybe, just maybe, she'd allow herself to open up to him.

"This is nice," he said walking up behind her. She made a small happy grunt, that let him know that she appreciated his presence once again.

He stepped next to her, leaning over the rail again, also just staring at the falls.

"I picked the Canadian falls because they're so much grander. I mean look at those dinky little falls over there and then look at these beautiful ones right here. Seriously, I'm never making fun of Canadians again." He chuckled.

"Well they do have that going for them." She nodded, a serene look on her face.

"You know, I read this story a few years ago about this guy who went over the falls in a barrel," she said.

"A barrel?" He grunted. "Must have been a pretty big one."

She smirked and then shrugged. "Maybe. But then again, it's amazing what people will do if they really want to do something. I mean, they get all those guys in a clown car, don't they? And Warren Beatty, he was Hollywood's biggest playboy for years, and then he met Annette Benning and she said she'd marry him if and only if he was faithful. What is it, 6 years later, and they're still married, he's still faithful and they've got 3 kids. I guess that's what happens when you really want to do something."

"Huh," he grunted, completely caught up in the melody of her words.

"Hasn't there ever been something that you wanted so badly but you couldn't do it because you were too scared?" she asked, taking her eyes off of the falls and glancing over at him.

Only one thing came to his mind immediately: kissing Lorelai. He glanced away in case the flush of his cheeks or the expression on his face gave him away. "Nothing I can think of," he got out, leaning over the railing, pretending to stare down at the canyon before him.

Noticing a lack of response from Lorelai, he looked over at her. She was just staring off into the distance. "What about you?" he finally asked.

"I think I always hope that one day I can go back to my parents's place and fix things between us, apologize for just leaving, apologize for being the daughter they got rather than the daughter they deserved, and finally, just finally, get them to see my point of view."

"I can't imagine that they wouldn't want that either."

"You've never met my mother."

"Hey," he said, lightly touching her arm. "You want to get a closer look?" She glanced over at him and gave him a relieved smile.

He was amazed how proud he felt of himself at this moment. Like he had just jumped the high bar and won the gold medal. But if that's what it took to get Lorelai Gilmore to look at him this way, he'd walk miles and miles under the falls.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the hike through the falls during which Lorelai spent much time harassing Luke about the lovely yellow raingear he was forced to wear. After that they bought a trip on the Maid of the Mist, changed into new raingear, blue this time, and took a trip down the Niagara River and into basin of the falls. Luke couldn't help but take his eyes off the falls and watch Lorelai as she leaned over the rail, her mouth open as she laughed, taking in the amazing scenery around her. It was a nice change from the solemn Lorelai he had been met with when they first parked at the site. She was so different that he wondered if he had just imagined the somber tones in her voice and the slight downturn to the corners of her mouth. But she was here, she was next to him, she was smiling and pulling on his arm and drinking in the electric atmosphere, and maybe that's all that mattered.

She had been so excited about the first day of their trip that she made him take another walk through the falls but this time at night. Somewhat surprising to her had been his eagerness to join her on the late night walk. Had she scared him when she crabbed at him back in the parking lot? Had she worried him that much with her solemn question by the railing? Whatever had happened, she was personally glad it had, it was amazing to her how much more she appreciated the view of the falls and the wonder of it all with Luke by her side, mocking the tour guides and teasing her about her fascination with the sound of the water hitting the bottom. He was almost a comfort. Strange how she had never really realized what a luxury her friendship with Luke was and she fears that if something were to ever change, she might lose this amazing relationship, the only one to sustain her when Rory was gone.

"So… music?" Lorelai asked, as they drove along two days later.

After leaving the falls, they had found the cheapest motel around and had crashed shortly after entering their respective rooms. In the morning, Lorelai had eagerly bounced into Luke's room after he opened the door, ready to get back the United States and continue their journey. He slowly got himself together, threw both of their suitcases in the truck and found a Tim Hortons for coffee for the caffeine-deprived Lorelai. From there, they headed back to the US and decided to head towards Blue Ridge Parkway. By the previous night, they had reached the parkway and were now making their way down from New York to North Carolina in between the mountains.

"Better than your incessant chattering."

"Hey, I've been told that I'm a witty conversationalist."

"By who, the Golden Girls?" She groaned in response and reached to tinker with the radio.

After a few minutes of flipping through stations and finding nothing more than fuzz and some of the worst country music she had ever heard, she flicked off the radio and sighed.

"Something wrong?" Luke asked. She pouted.

"You don't have a CD player and the radio stations in Appalachia suck."

"I told you to bring tapes."

Suddenly her face lit up. She leaned in the back and grabbed a bag, settling it in her lap. "You know, I forgot that you lived in the land before time when there was no such thing as CDs." She fishes around in the bag before selecting a tape and putting it in.

"If that's some annoying 80s band, I'm turning it off."

"Guess what, Buddy? You don't have a CD player, you don't get to pick. Besides it's not an 80s band, it's ABBA," she said just as the music clicked on.

He glanced over to watch as she leaned her elbow out the window, laying back and setting her shoeless feet on the dashboard, the glitter of her nail polish sparkling in the sun. She seemed so relaxed to him, the expression on her face so serene that he hesitated to tell her that ABBA wasn't a better choice. As he glanced between the road and Lorelai, he finally noticed that she was mouthing the lyrics to Dancing Queen. _You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen. _Her toes danced on the dashboard to the beat as the music seemed to electrify the air and he slowly understood what the song was really about. It was about her, Lorelai. She was the beautiful dancing queen at seventeen, the one that no man could take his eyes off of, who could break a man's heart without a clue.

Yes there was something fragile about her, like a baby bird with a broken wing, beautiful and innocent with a vulnerability few could see. Somehow he felt it was there, whether or not she had actually allowed him to see it. He wasn't sure how to get her to open up, to let him know what was inside, but he hoped that eventually he would figure that out.

Late that night, Lorelai unlocked the door to her hotel room, setting her suitcase on the ground inside. It had been a nice drive through the mountains. The scenery had been so exquisite, nothing she had ever experienced before, and she felt on the drive, listening the jivy 70s music, she had achieved a sense of peace with the turn her life was taking.

Rory was about to head off to high school and before she knew it, she'd be driving Rory to Harvard, never to see her for months at a time. Then she'd have no one.

Christopher would still be in California, involved in another losing business adventure. In the end she wasn't sure if she wasn't just happy that he stayed out there, visits from him always seemed to complicate her life more than improve it.

Her parents would still be on the same rough terms with her as always.

She'd have no one to turn to, just as she has no one there for her now… but Luke. After everything, after her years of calling him Duke and harassing him about his wardrobe, three years of being his patron, he was still there. In fact he was more than there, he was here. For some strange reason, she felt her heart warm and relax with that thought.

Suddenly she felt unbelievably tired, looking at the clock she knew why, it was almost midnight. But, she realized, that meant it was nine o'clock in California. In an instant she was on the edge of the bed dialing the familiar number.

"Hello?" came Rory's soft voice over the phone. Lorelai settled herself back against the headboard, ready for a needed chat with her daughter.

"Hey Sweets, it's me."

"Me, who?"

"Oh Shakey, you kill me." Rory giggled. "So how's life with father?"

"It's good so far. He's just been walking me around, showing me the sites. Although he did ask if I wanted to go to the zoo tomorrow like I was eight."

Lorelai can't contain her laughter at that one. She knows that Christopher will never see Rory as anything but that little girl that Lorelai sent pictures of twice a year. Though she'd love for him to finally grow up and understand that his daughter needs him in her life, she wonders if that's even possible anymore with Chris now age 30 and Rory now age 14. Maybe this trip was a start, but Lorelai didn't feel so sure about that.

"Well that's Chris for ya."

"How's the trip with Luke? Both of you still alive? I don't hear sirens over the line so I'm guessing this isn't your one phone call from jail."

"You're hilarious, Rory. I forgot you were so funny. Actually, Luke and I are getting along just fine. We went to Niagara Falls and I convinced him to wear one of those giant blue raincoats so we could walk under the falls."

"I'm picturing this, I swear. Did they make him take off the baseball cap?"

"Heaven forbid!"

Since the first day she and Rory had sat down and had a cup of coffee in the diner and noticed Luke's unusual wardrobe, this had become a common thing for them. They often spent time joking about his clothes and his disgruntled attitude, even when he was around. Yet something about having the conversation now, while Rory's in California with her father, jarred Lorelai. Maybe it was the fact that Rory seemed so at ease with Luke from the start, which had never shocked Lorelai before, but maybe it should have. She wondered why it was suddenly so odd that Rory had taken such an interest in a man who did little but serve meals to them. Maybe because Lorelai was just starting to realize that he actually did much more than that for them.

"So what else did you do?" Rory asked, more than a little fascinated by the trip her mother was taking.

"Today we took a drive down the blue ridge parkway."

"Oh cool! See any mountain men?"

"Only the one sitting next to me in the driver's seat." She could clearly hear Rory scoff over the phone. "And then we just drove to this hotel to crash."

"In the same room?"

"What? No… Rory!"

"Well… you took this trip together, just the two of you, and Luke so definitely has a thing for you."

"No, Rory, he doesn't. Where would you get an insane idea like that?"

Before the words were out of her mouth, Lorelai was already questioning it. Had her daughter noticed something that she had never realized? But she never got along with Luke, she drove him crazy by calling him nicknames and eating junk food. Through her thoughts she could hear Rory's incessant chatter. "And he makes you special breakfasts even when you harass him for it. And he came on this trip with you which is a total conflict to his whole woodsman existence…" As Rory kept going on, Lorelai considered her daughter's words. She still hadn't been able to figure out why he had gone on this trip. Could Rory be right? If Rory was right, did that give her any idea why she had agreed as well?

All she could think was that, right now, as she was talking to Rory, he was in the next room. Probably laid out on his bed completely passed out.

"Hey Rory, not to interrupt or anything, but do you remember the first episode of X-files?"

"Is it kinda like that?"

"Yeah, it's kinda like that."

"Well don't run naked into his room, or at least, don't tell me if you do. You know, you do realize that Mulder and Scully had feelings for each other then."

"Depends on what you believe."

"Well I was a big shipper if you remember." Lorelai cracks up.

"I can't believe you just used the word shipper."


	3. Chapter 3

"So you said you want to go to St. Louis?" Luke asked as he reached into the bag next to him to pull out some maps. They had left the hotel in the morning and drove across the street to a small diner they had noticed the night before.

"Yeah, it always sounded like a nice place to go. You watch the movies and all you can think is Judy Garland going 'clang, clang, clang, goes the train'," she half-sang, half-joked. He nodded, opening the maps in front of him. "What's that?"

He furrowed his eyebrows, glancing up at her. "Maps. Don't tell me you've never seen a map."

"On the wall of the classroom in elementary school, yes. But Rory and I are anti-maps."

"Well I'm not going to guide myself by the yellow brick road."

"Could be fun." He glanced up to find her grinning at him and he knew she was just playing with him.

She adjusted herself in her chair, tucking her leg underneath her, so that she could lean over the maps as well. "So Don Quioxte, those maps tell you in exactly what direction we should go so that I can tan on the way to St. Louis."

"Only if you're planning on tanning from the driver's seat." She raised her eyebrows, a smile slowly spreading over her face.

"You're going to let me drive? Mr. Super-Possessive About His Old Green Truck, is going to let me drive? I think my heart just stopped." Luke rolled his eyes. With a sigh, he folded up the maps.

"Yes, you're going to drive so I that I can chose the music. If I have to listen to one more hippy, flowery, disco song, I'm going to go nuts."

"What makes you think that just because I'm driving, I won't be choosing the music?"

Luke ignored her comment as he finished putting the maps away. He then opened the menu, annoying Lorelai as he blatantly ignored her as he read through it very carefully. She huffed and sighed, clearly getting frustrated with their lack of conversation. Finally she grabbed the menu out from in front of him.

"Hey!" he exclaimed.

"I brought you for company, now talk to me."

He stared at her like she was crazy. "Are you eight years old?" She grinned.

"When I feel like it."

He sighed taking the menu back from her and adjusting himself in his chair. Folding the menu next to him, he folded his hands in front of him and looked at her, a compliant expression on his face. "Okay, what would you like to talk about?" She shrugged, not really knowing how or what to answer.

In the silence of the moment, she began to wonder why she had brought him along. Really, she knew that she hadn't actually asked him at all, that he had agreed to come before she had actually realized that in a way she had asked him. But still, she could have said no, she could have said she'd prefer to go alone (okay, not an option) or with someone else or not go at all. She had choices. So why Luke? She wasn't sure at this point, but she was pretty positive that after a month alone together, she would have her answer.

"You talked to Rory last night after we got back?" he asked, after noticing her eyes glaze.

"Yup. She's going blond and learning to surf like a real California girl," Lorelai joked, but Luke could tell she hadn't put the same enthusiasm behind it as her usual jokes.

She looked up to find his eyes boring into her and was forced to look away, flustered. Something about his look made her wonder if he was reading her mind. How did he know her that well? He served her coffee, she let out a stream of jokes. When in their time together had he ever really gotten to know more about her than her patterns of caffeination and sarcasm?

With a sigh, she laid her hand on the table, the tips of her fingers tracing indistinct patterns on the Formica. "I miss her," Lorelai finally admitted softly.

Luke almost feels his heart stop with her confession. Had Lorelai Gilmore just let him into her mind just a bit? At the same time, he wondered why this made him feel so special, it wasn't like she had told him she loved him. But he was sure that Lorelai didn't often let people see past the shield she put up.

"She'll be back soon," he assured her, but she didn't look up at him or pause her movements. He quickly reached out and laid his hand over hers, his heart skipping a beat at the warm sensation of touching Lorelai's hand for the first time and the realization that she was allowing him to do it. "Hey." She slowly looked up to match his gaze. "It's all right to miss her. But don't let that keep you from enjoying yourself."

He watched as a smile slowly spread across her face and she looked at him in a way that made him feel like he had just saved her precious cat from a tree. Even though he really felt that he hadn't done much, it didn't matter, because Lorelai was giving him that look and deep within him, he knew that was enough to last a lifetime.

The waitress, who looked like something out of the fifties, walked over to their table. "What do ya want?" she asked, seeming less than interested in actually getting them what they wanted.

"Pancakes, side of bacon," Lorelai requested, not losing an inch of smile on her face. "Oh and coffee, lots of it." Luke rolled his eyes at this, even though he had known it was coming.

"Just a half a grapefruit for me." Lorelai smirked as the waitress walked away. Luke shook his head in amazement. "I'll never know how you can eat like that and look like that," he said with a wave in her direction.

"How can you eat like that and look like that?" He glanced down at himself, confused.

"Are you calling me fat?"

"No, I…" She blushed, suddenly realizing how her question had come off. "I mean, you look all… buff or… I don't really know what you've got under that flannel… but I…" She rolled her eyes, watching him start to grin in response to her stammering, feeling herself blush even more.

True, she had often wondered what body he kept under that flannel. With his eating habits, she was sure it was a nice body, but who could tell? All she knew was, if she looked back at him now and he saw the flush to her face and the grin she couldn't keep off of it, he'd know again what she was really thinking, but this time without ever having to read her mind.

"So you weren't lying when you said you knew how to drive a stick," Luke commented as they drove along that afternoon.

"Dirty!" She grinned hearing Luke's sigh to her right.

"So I think we should graduate," he said. She glanced over at him to see if he was motioning to indicate as to what he was getting at but he made no movements.

"From…? Hey, did I tell you I was thinking about taking some business courses at that school up in Hartford?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, you know, Sookie and I still want to open our own inn someday and I thought it would be helpful, you know, so I could manage the business end of the whole shebang."

He nodded like he was really mulling the idea of Lorelai and Sookie opening their own inn over in his mind. For a moment, she wondered what he was thinking, that maybe he thought she couldn't do it, she couldn't focus enough to be able to get it all together. But then he looked over at her and gave her a smile, one of those that he kept for certain moments, that made her feel like Midas had just touched her with his golden finger. He added a nod, letting her know without having to say it exactly what he thought of her plan.

"I meant, I think we should switch license plate games. We should do Rory's version," he suggested.

"You think you're ready for that? I mean, I'm no Harvard-bound fourteen year old."

"She's really going to go there?"

"No doubt in my mind," Lorelai replied without a moment's hesitation. She could only imagine what her parents would say the moment she and Rory announced it was official.

But Luke just went on as if her word were the gospel, turning on the music with a flick of his fingers. "You got anything better than this?" he asked as the Eagles began Hotel California. Lorelai shook her head and grinned, wanting to listen to the lyrics of the song she knew so well. For all the times she had heard the song, she had never really taken the time to figure out what they were trying to get at with saying. _And she said we are all just prisoners here of our own device._ A person who needed an escape went to Hotel California, an escape from the life they lead, but they'll never be able to leave. She knew full well that this trip was just an escape from a life she never wanted to attempt, a life without Rory. What would it even be like? She couldn't imagine it.

Hearing Luke shuffle agitatedly in his seat, she glanced over at him, allowing her eyes travel over him in the few moments before they had to return to the road in front of her. Suddenly she knew, a life without Rory would still have Luke, and for some reason, she wasn't so worried about losing Rory anymore.

"Little Rock," Luke grunted. She glanced up to see a car with the license plate from Arkansas passing her and smiled to herself. Okay Luke Danes, two can play this game, she thought to herself.

"Baton Rouge."

It was early the next evening before Luke drove them into St. Louis. They had passed quite a few fruit stands along the road before Lorelai couldn't hold it in anymore and begged Luke to let her stop and check out the fruit. Possibly the idea that Lorelai was, for once, asking to eat something healthy, made him quickly give into her request. So they stopped at two of them and browsed and tried a few pieces of melon before picking out some of the best smelling peaches Luke could ever have imagined. He considered for a moment possibly writing down where this stand was so that he could get some another time for his homemade peach pie that his sister loved. Then again, he couldn't remember Lorelai ever eating the peach pie and that must mean something, so he quickly gave up that idea and bought some blueberries instead.

Luke watched Lorelai's expression as he pulled into the parking space by the St. Louis arch. It was almost better than looking at the structure itself. Her eyes were as blue as the feathers of a jaybird, glittering, not mischievously as they often were, but delightedly. Her mouth was open, her pink lips parted in awe. Her whole face was lit up as if something amazing was happening in front of her, but nothing was. All that was in front of them was the tall silver arch, gleaming out of the bluish-purplish-pinkish sky of nightfall.

Slowly Lorelai grabbed the handle on the door and exited the truck, not for a moment taking her eyes off of the arch. Luke followed suit, walking to stand in front of the truck to wait for her to walk over. "This is just…wow," Lorelai said huskily in that voice that took Luke's breath away completely, it was so sexy. He wanted just to whisk her away, show her all the beautiful things everywhere in the world just to get her to say those words like that again.

"I never knew that a tall steel arch could be that amazing," Luke said with obvious sarcasm.

"That's because you're not seeing what I'm seeing. Come over here," she said, holding out her hand to him, making his heart drop. Timidly he walked over to her, letting her wrap her hand around his elbow. He stared at her hand touching his red flannel as she returned her eyes to the arch. "Do you see it?"

"Yes, I see it," he uttered breathlessly, his eyes still focused on her hand. Then realizing what she meant, he glanced up at the arch. Sure, it was tall and silver but somehow, standing there with Lorelai's hand around his elbow, truly made it seem like a different structure altogether. It was magnificent and majestic. He wondered if Paris had gotten the nickname The City of Love by people who stared up at the Eiffel Tower with its dark, metal majesty rising out of the sky. Because all he knew right now, right at this moment, he was falling in love, with the arch, with the city, but most of all, with Lorelai Gilmore.

"You want to go up?" she asked and he glanced over at her.

"You can do that?" She smirked.

"Yeah, you big dope, we can do that." He nodded, his throat too dry at this point to actually respond. She let go of his arm and motioned for her to follow him.

The instant her hand left his elbow all his senses came back to him. He watched her walk away for a moment before actually following. It was true, he had known from almost the moment he met Lorelai that he had feelings for her. She was beautiful, but it was more than that. She was the light of day even late into the night. She could light up a whole dark room with just her voice and her smile and the joy she brought along with it. He knew that the past few days when he had comforted her in her glum moments, he was mostly doing it so to bring back that part of her. Only now, at this moment, just after witnessing her giddiness and amazement at the beauty that was the St. Louis arch, did he actually realize it was more than just feelings, he was in love.

"Come on Luke!" she called, not wanting to waste a moment.

They bought the tickets and after a trip on the tram, along with a museum tour through the United States in the 1800s that Luke would rather forget, found themselves looking out from the highest point of the arch. Lorelai stared out the window, watching the night sky envelope the large city. "Rory would have loved this," she said softly. "You think that she would have rather done this with me than what she's doing with Christopher?"

Luke was struck for a moment. Was she really asking him this or was her question rhetorical? "Well I – I don't really know Christopher," he stammered. She rolled her eyes, not moving her gaze from the city before her. "Lorelai, I've known Rory just as long as I've known you, minus a day, and from what I've seen, she'd love to be anywhere with you."

"Yeah, but she's not. She's with Christopher," Lorelai said bitterly, which made Luke wonder what she was really annoyed about.

"Are you angry that she went and left you alone for a month? Or are you angry that Christopher didn't ask you also?" She stepped back away from the window and glanced over at him wide-eyed.

"I don't want to be with Christopher if that's what you're asking."

"Well that was, actually, kind of what I was asking, Lorelai. I mean, he is Rory's father. And I have considered that maybe, even though you didn't want to marry him when you were pregnant with Rory, that maybe now that you're older, you'd like to reconsider."

"I wouldn't!" Lorelai insisted. "Christopher is… he was a lot like me back then, both wanting to get out of the lives we were destined for, tea with the Vanderbilts, summers on the Vineyard, becoming those blue-blooded rich people with their noses pointing to the sky. Life in Stepford. Ug, can you imagine?"

"No."

"He'd have followed me anywhere, like a little lapdog. The moment I kissed him for the first time, I had him wrapped around my finger. But that's not love. And he's still that same guy." She shrugged. "Why do you think I'd want to be with Christopher?"

"Because he's Rory's father," Luke answered simply.

"Luke, when you were sixteen, didn't you do anything that you regret now?"

He shrugged. There was a whole myriad of things, but the moments he chose to run on the track team instead of spending time with his father rang clearest in his mind. But he couldn't tell Lorelai. How could that even compare? Her bad decision of sex without contraception that changed her life forever was so much different, on a much bigger scale.

"I'm sure there's something. What, did you steal candy from the five and dime?" she pressed.

"No, I… Lorelai, I just…" She scoffed.

"Come on Luke, something. Tell me something about your childhood. Anything. Tell me how you used to tie your sister's braids together or put gum on Sissy Steven's chair. Something."

What did she care? How was him telling the horrid details of his past going to comfort her now when she was hurting?

"Lorelai, just forget it," he tried.

"No, Luke! You want me to tell you all this stuff, open up to you about everything, but you're a complete mystery!"

"No I'm not."

"What do I know about you?"

"There's nothing to know!"

"Bullshit! There's nothing you want me to know. I thought we were friends, close friends, maybe… I don't know more, or something, but close friends open up, they tell each other things they wouldn't tell anyone else and this trip together is the perfect opportunity, but you won't. You just want to remain that grumpy, pessimistic diner guy I know you're not!"

"Lorelai…"

"Just… take me to the hotel." Seething, she folded her arms, not taking one more look out the window, not wanting the magical view to be tainted by the anger spewing inside of her. Stalking over to the elevator, she stayed there with her arms crossed, waiting for him. After a moment, he realized that she was serious and walked over to the elevator as well.

The ride down on the tram and the subsequent drive to a nearby hotel was quiet, more silent than any moment Luke could ever have imagined with Lorelai. The silence was deafening, but he couldn't think quickly enough at this point to do anything about it.

"And you just walked away?" Rory asked that night on the phone. Lorelai sighed sadly.

"Kid, you don't get it. I don't want this whole thing to be all about me. This trip was supposed to be fun, we were supposed to learn about each other, not listen to me complain about my life in-between random scenic views of the continental United States."

"Yeah, but did he know that?"

Lorelai frowned. No, she knew she had never told him that specifically but had hoped that he would just figure it out on his own. Didn't he know her at all?

"You know, all lovers quarrel," Rory commented, a note of glee in her voice.

"Rory!" Lorelai exclaimed, still a little shocked at some of the things that came out of her fourteen year old daughter's mouth sometimes. Although she shouldn't be seeing as who Rory's mother was, but still, sometimes these things reminded her that Rory was growing up so fast.

"I'm just saying… couples fight. But if they love each other, they fix things and make up."

"Wait, so all of a sudden I've gone from being a patron and customer to some crazed woman desperately in love?"

"You said it, Eustacia, not I." Lorelai groaned.

"Well, it's not true, Rory, and I think you would know that if-" Lorelai was interrupted by a knock on the door of her room. She glanced the clock and sighed. "Ug, Rory, sorry, hold on a second, apparently this is Chicago in 1871 and the cow is not being good again."

Setting down the phone, Lorelai walked over to the door, knowing who was there before even opening it. She made sure her expression was in 'slightly ticked off' mode before opening it.

"Get your stuff. Get in the car. I'm taking you somewhere," was all Luke said before he marched away. Lorelai stood there, too shocked to move or retort back down the hallway or even to realize that Luke just saw her in her nightgown for the first time.


	4. Chapter 4

After a request from Lorelai, Luke had agreed to stay the night at the hotel and head out the next day. In the morning, both woke up, packed, paid their bills and got into the truck, with Luke driving, without so much as a 'good morning' to the other. The silence was almost unbearable for Luke, who had actually become so used to Lorelai's chatter, that he was starting to prefer it to the annoying twang of the radio.

Yet, the quiet ride did give him a chance to again go over his thoughts from the night before. He wasn't a quick thinker like he had found Lorelai to be. He couldn't come up with an instant retort to one of her sarcastic jabs. He just had to take it and when he got time alone, he could reconsider what he should have said or done. Maybe she found this annoying, but that was just the way he was and if she really wanted him by her side, in the friendly type way (oh man she was starting to invade his thinking pattern), then she was just going to have to learn to deal with this fault of his.

Since the beginning of the trip he had often found himself wondering why she had wanted him to take this trip with her. It had taken him time to understand that what she wanted from him on this trip was more than his presence as just another body, but him, his friendship, his openness, all he could offer, that's why she had wanted him to come. That was what he had given her from the start with a willingness to let her revel in the amazing sites they had visited so far and an eye for when was the right time to touch her gently and move her to open up to him and let him comfort her when she was silently wishing for things that could never be. But until the last night, he hadn't realized that she wanted this to go both ways, that this wasn't just a trip for her, a way for her to escape Stars Hollow without Rory, but for him as well. She wanted him to finally see her as a person he could talk to, a woman who was willing to listen and actually wished he would find her as the one person with whom he could let down his guard.

For once, he actually wanted to. Rachel had tried to get in, she had known his father, but somehow he knew that telling her would be no use. In the end, she had left him and he was relieved that her knowledge of his painful memories had not left with her. He couldn't have handled finally finding someone to open up to only to have her leave him.

But Lorelai, she was different. Somehow, after just these short days, barely more than a week, he knew that she wanted the same from him as he did from her. He knew that she sought out his friendship because, without him, she would be alone after Rory went away and she knew she could trust him to be by her side for as long as their relationship, whatever it may be, lasted.

So now he was going to give in, do something he had never done before, let someone past that invisible wall he had put up around him. Though it scared him to do so, he knew that it was finally time, he had finally found the right person and if he played his cards right, he might receive more rewards from this than he could have imagined.

As he glanced over at her now, he knew that biding his time was best. She sat silently in the seat, as far away from him as possible, wringing her hands in her lap as if she was worried about something. Maybe she was. Maybe she wasn't sure she should have yelled at him like that last night, but really, he was just starting to realize that was exactly what he had needed.

The odd noises of the truck caused him to turn his attentions from the beautiful woman next to him. He listened for a moment before deciding that these were probably not the best noises his truck had made (somewhere in his mind he was hearing Lorelai's dirty!). Hearing Lorelai's soft huff, he pulled off the road into some small Mississippi river town. Passing a small dusty shop selling who-knew-what he asked some guy standing around where a good mechanic was and drove on over there.

They both got out when they got to the mechanic's shop but Lorelai stayed by the truck with an irritated look on her face as Luke talked to the guy. After talking with the mechanic, Luke unenthusiastically headed over to where Lorelai stood, her arms folded over her chest, looking into the sun. "He said he'd take a look at the truck but he figured he could have it fixed by tomorrow if not the day after." Lorelai scoffed, but Luke wondered if she was just still angry at him from the day before and taking it out on the truck breaking down. "Have you ever seen the Mississippi?"

Lorelai looked up at him with a curious expression on her face. There they were, stranded in the middle of nowhere, and he was asking if she had ever seen the river up close. This was a whole new side of Luke Danes, a spontaneous one, and deep down, she knew she liked it. She shook her head, knowing that if she responded verbally, he'd be able to get her to forget she had been really angry with him not so long ago.

"Well come on then," he said, motioning away from the shop with his head. She glanced back at the shop, confused.

"Don't we need…?" She looked back at Luke, noticing the firm expression on his face. No time to wait. No time for luggage. That's what he was saying. Somehow she felt he was testing her, that he wanted to know if she was really as spontaneous as she pretended to be. Well, Lorelai Gilmore was never one to back down from a dare. "Lead on."

They walked in silence towards the water, stopping only at a small stand they found along the way to get some ice cream. Lorelai didn't even comment with surprise when Luke gave in and got a cone for himself, peach of course, while she got two scoops of chocolate. They walked around, each using the silence to take in the dusty town they were walking through, small like Stars Hollow, but completely different in so many ways.

Finally they reached a hill that lead down to the banks of the Mississippi River. Luke offered Lorelai a hand, which she accepted with an eyebrow raised, moving her ice cream to the other hand so that she could be so nice as to not drip chocolate on Luke. He lead her to a grassy bank underneath a bridge so that they could be partly in the shade. She stared out at the water, suddenly amazed by the view in front of her. She had never been this far West before, never this far South, never this close to understanding Mark Twain.

Glancing back to look at Luke, she's stunned to find that he's removed his flannel and laid it on the ground. "Sit," he commanded, but she can't seem to take her eyes off of Luke. He was standing there in front of her in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans. As her eyes traveled over the tight muscles of his chest and abs, up his arm to the tattoo sticking out from under his sleeve to his broad shoulders and thick biceps, she suddenly wondered if she was drooling. Quickly, hopefully not too obviously, she ran the back of her hand over her mouth and sat down, wishing she could control the blush of her face. It's Luke, she kept reminding herself. Luke was the man who served her coffee with a hint of sarcasm at all times. Course, Luke was also the man who had come on this trip with her to places he probably had never wanted to go, put up with all her crazy ideas, and was continuously by her side as she whined about Rory and Christopher. As she glanced over at him one more time, as he sat down next to her on the ground, she began to realize that maybe he was the only one who had ever really been there for her, always, unconditionally, even when she went on a tear and screamed at him, he was still there, buying her chocolate ice cream, offering her his hand and laying down his flannel so she wouldn't have to sit in the dirt.

"Luke, I…" she began at the same moment he said, "My mother, she…" They both smiled softly, knowing that in an instant their fight was over. She motioned for him to go on.

"You wanted me to open up. You wanted me to tell you things. So if I do, whatever you do, don't you dare use it against me," he said.

She grinned, but she knew there was a little hesitancy in his voice. "Wouldn't dream of it," she answered as seriously as possible, which Luke also found incredibly sexy. How she could be so exceptionally annoying and amazingly alluring at the same time? He had to take his eyes off of her baby blue eyes and smile that could melt the Ice Queen in order to stay focused on what he was saying.

"My mother was from the South. She grew up in Alabama but when she went to college, she decided to go against her family's wishes and go to Brown up in Rhode Island. In her sophomore year she was dating a guy from Yale and went one weekend to visit him. He took her to a pub in Hartford and when she went up to the bar to get a drink she ran into my dad. She gave him her number and the moment she walked into her dorm room at Brown, the phone rang and it was my dad calling. They never went a day without talking after that." Lorelai looked stunned.

"Wow," was all she could manage.

"I guess I just always felt that I would know the woman I would marry because I'd never want to go a day without talking with her. I'd want to be friends with her first." He shrugged. "I guess no one would ever believe I've ever thought about getting married."

"I would." He looked up at her in surprise. "I would," she repeated with emphasis and smiled to herself. "You know, my mother would be surprised that I've ever thought of getting married."

"Because you didn't marry Christopher?" Lorelai nodded. "If he moved back here now, I mean it's years later, would you ever reconsider?"

Lorelai stared out at the water for a moment, considering Luke's question. Did he really want to know the truth? Would he really believe her? Suddenly it almost scared her how comfortable she felt opening up to him. She had always been able to talk to Rory, tell her anything, but she had refrained, especially when it came to her parents and Christopher. Somehow she felt deep down that Rory should form her own opinions about them without Lorelai's influence. But Luke, he was different. He was willing to listen, to hear, to understand and, if necessary, tell her she's a good person in the end.

She couldn't just let his question go unanswered, after all it would be incredibly hypocritical of her after her tirade in St. Louis. "No," she answered softly. "Chris was a wonderful friend, he was very attractive in a physical sort of way. I guess I really should have listened to the people who said that you should only sleep with a man you loved. I loved Chris in an entirely platonic way. And even though he's Rory's dad, he's still my childhood friend that I once slept with in a moment that felt like that scene in Sixteen Candles."

"I would ask what scene, but then that would mean that I'd care to see that movie," Luke grumped. Lorelai laughed.

"I guess, if you would have asked me a month ago, I would have said Christopher would never mature enough that he could even consider asking me to marry him again, but now…" She pursed her lips as she shrugged.

"You think he's changed?"

"Well, I mean, he's trying to be a father to Rory."

"Why do I get the feeling you wish that he wouldn't?"

She smiled to herself. Luke knew her so well. "She's my daughter. She's always been my daughter, mine alone, and I guess, I figure that gives me the right to be a little possessive."

"But not quite to the same extent as Miss Havisham," Luke noted. Lorelai looked over at him with a smirk on her face.

"Right."

"I read!" Luke insisted.

"I never doubted it," Lorelai said seriously but still a hint of teasing in her voice. "It's just that… she's got four years of high school left and then that's it. No more Lorelai and Rory time, no more Gilmore Girls, nor more Lor and Ror partying it up in the Crap Shack."

Luke cleared his throat, trying to decide what to respond to first at this point. "The Crap Shack?" he asked, figuring knowing the answer to that question would be his first hint at where to go from there.

He gave Lorelai a moment to snicker quietly to herself as she remembered the naming of the Crap Shack. "It's what Rory and I named our house," Lorelai explained. Luke raised his eyebrows.

"Good name, almost as good as Buckingham Palace."

"Yeah, we considered that one, but we thought we'd have to fight ole' Lizzy for that one."

Luke chuckled as he put the last bit of his cone in his mouth. He glanced over at her to find her gazing at him and smiling, pleased that her little joke has cleared the air and made him laugh. He nodded to her, just to make sure she knew that everything was all right, that whatever their disagreement was, it was over as of that moment. Leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees, he thought again about what she was trying to tell him. "You know she'll always come back right?"

From the corner of his eye, he could see her grimace. He lightly pats her upper back, just wanting to let her know that he was there. He had known since the day he met Rory that she was the most important person in Lorelai's life. It was possible that he couldn't imagine Lorelai without Rory more than Lorelai could, to him it was like watching Star Trek without Spock. Who wouldn't miss Spock when he was gone? It wouldn't be the same show without Spock. He might have never liked Star Trek without Spock, well maybe that wasn't true, but he wouldn't have appreciated it in the same way.

"She may be at Harvard, but you'll have the phone, Lorelai. And she'll come home. She'll miss you too," he assured her. She nodded, biting her lower lip. She wanted to believe him, she really did, but somehow his words seemed like those veiled assurances you give a child when you take them to the doctor to get a shot. Seeing her eyes becoming misty, he reached over and tipped her chin up, forcing her to look into his eyes.

"Luke, she…" Lorelai attempted, her words caught in the lump in her throat.

"She's called. You've talked almost everyday while we've been on this trip and she's been across the country, even farther away than Harvard. And you've got four more years with her."

"Four more years," she repeated softly, lost in his eyes for a moment. They're so blue, assuring and warm.

"And you won't be alone when she leaves."

He didn't need to explain what he meant, he could tell that she got his point from the soft look in her eyes. It took all his might not to close that distance between them, not to press his lips to hers and taste her lips that he knew would be so very sweet. He thought it might be like the first time he bit into a strawberry, sugary but not so much that it was overwhelming. As he looked at her lips at this moment, a mix of pink and red, moist enough that they shimmered in the sun, he felt his heart react, though he hadn't actually touched them.

Then she looked away, out at the water, not realizing that Luke is completely entranced by her. "Yeah, I won't be alone. I mean…." She smiles to herself, hearing Luke's unvocalized words. "I'll have the whole town." Luke snorted.

"Yeah," he said and nodded. "Yeah, you'll have the whole town. You're like Athena to Stars Hollow's Athens, they practically pray too you." Lorelai laughed.

"They do not." She shook her head at him, but couldn't stop smiling. "Hey, did I ever tell you the story about the first time Rory met Babette?"

"No, you didn't, but I'm already hooked."

She sat up, clapping her hands excitedly. "You should be, it's a really great story."

"And it comes highly recommended apparently." Lorelai giggled.

"Okay, so it was the day the Misty Alman took us over to the Crap Shack, before it was the Crap Shack, I mean before it was ours, it was still, you know, what it is now."

"Aw, you let Misty Alman show you the house?"

"Not the point Lucas." He rolled his eyes.

"I'll be quiet."

"So we were walking around the outside of the porch because Misty Alman absolutely had to show us that the porch wraps all the way around, as if I wouldn't have just believed her. And besides, with the idea in mind that Rory and I had been living in a potting shed for the past 10 years, I would think I'd be okay if the porch didn't go completely around the house. Anyways, so all of a sudden this music starts playing and this woman comes out of the house next door with a cat in her arms yelling to the guy inside that Cinnamon hates Dizzy Gillespie. Of course she notices Rory and I and comes right over. She asks Rory if she likes Dizzy Gillespie and she insists that she does not, of course I wasn't sure if Rory even knew who Dizzy was but Rory said it so seriously it was hard to argue. So Babette put the cat in Rory's arms and told Rory to go inside and tell Morey that no one likes Dizzy Gillespie. And you know what? Rory did just that. I had to bite my lip to keep from breaking out in laughter."

As she was telling Luke this story, she was watching his reaction. He couldn't keep from smiling, the amusement sparkling in his eyes, or maybe it was the moonlight. As they had been talking, the sun had finished its trek down from the sky and the moon and stars had sprung out above. She had barely noticed, at least until now, until she was staring at the moonlight in his eyes. He was just sitting there next to her, just chuckling softly to her story, smiling with a smile she had never seen before, one she knew that he had never revealed to anyone before and when he winked at her slightly, she felt her heart flutter. Suddenly she was aware of all of this, the beat of her heart, the tingling of her nerves, the fog in her brain, and she knew she was falling in love.

She had already realized how wonderful he was. He was always there, just one step behind her. When it seemed like everything was falling apart, like that afternoon when she had been afraid of the future without Rory, he was the one to comfort her. He was the one who was there, steady as the ground beneath her feet. Though she thought it was a little corny that all she could hear was Bette Midler singing in her head. It wasn't just that she was grateful for his presence and comfort, she saw something in him, something that made her want to know more about him, something that made her heart beat faster and her cheeks flush, and she knew it was much more than appreciation, it was a feeling she had never felt before, it was love.

It was nothing like she had ever experienced before. With Christopher, with any other boyfriend, that attraction had always been more physical than anything. She kissed on the first date. She sometimes even put out on the first date. That was how it was supposed to be, right? When you have a crush on the guy, you're supposed to like kissing them and all of that? But somehow… that wasn't it. She hadn't ever kissed Luke, hadn't even thought about it, but here she was completely head over heels, so very sappy, in love with Luke, in that whole Jerry Maguire 'you complete me' kinda way, like Eponine with her secret love for Marius. How unbelievable it was that she could love someone who she had never kissed, barely hugged, almost never exchanged the slightest of touches with, but it was true. These feelings, the tightening of her heart like a sponge every time she saw that glint in his eyes, heard his tender words, felt the light touch of his comforting hands. Maybe that's what made Luke different from Christopher and the rest of them, he wanted more than to get her into bed, he actually wanted to know her, see her for who she really was, unveil the vulnerabilities she kept so hidden. For the first time, she was actually opening up to someone and letting him see her insecurities, because he cared, because he understood, because he even possibly loved her as well.

"Well, Rory was a pretty serious kid when I first met her," Luke said and she had to stop and remember what he was responding to.

"She still is pretty serious. She's so kind and endearing. She just wants everyone to love her which is so easy because she's so damn lovable. Like Elmo or something."

"That red thing on Sesame Street?" Lorelai gasped in shock.

"You know who Elmo is?" Luke shrugged. Lorelai grinned, loving every new thing she was learning about Luke on the trip.

"I hate Elmo."

"Me too!"

He nodded at her and smiled, that goofy grin on his face that made her heart flip and just made her want to say more crazy things to get him to make that expression again and again. How had she never seen it? Why didn't she ever realize? Well, whatever were the answers to those questions, this trip had been a better idea than she could have imagined, it brought him out of his grumpy, sarcastic, dinerman nature, not that she didn't appreciate Dinerman-Luke because that Luke was so much fun, but this Luke, this sweet, caring, honest, considerate man sitting next to her had caught her heart and she was sure she would never want it back.

"Hey there Honey Bunches," Lorelai said brightly into the phone, sitting cross-legged on the bed in her hotel room.

"Hmmmph?" Rory's voice croaked over the phone. "Mom?"

"It is I, the maternal unit!"

Rory groaned, but Lorelai knew that Rory was waking up. "Mom, it's 6:00 in the morning," Rory whined.

"Not here it's not."

"Yes, but here it is and if you woke up Dad, you're going to regret it."

Lorelai rolled her eyes. "Oh your father doesn't scare me. Besides, waking him at 6 in the morning is like bringing Dear Johnny back from the dead. Impossible." Hearing Rory's giggle over the phone, Lorelai smiled. "I just got back so I thought I'd call you." She hears sounds over the phone like Rory's adjusting herself on her bed for a long talk.

"Just got back?"

"Yeah, I just walked into my hotel room for the first time tonight," Lorelai said, in a suggestive way.

"Are you going somewhere gross with this?"

Lorelai huffed and then considered the idea of spending the night with Luke. Since her revelation in her mind back on the riverside, she hadn't really taken the time to consider what her feelings for Luke might mean for them down the road. In the future she might kiss Luke. In the future she might sleep with Luke. In the future she might lie there in his arms the entire night, comforted and warmed by his body and his love, never again to feel so alone in the world.

"Mom!" Rory exclaimed when Lorelai didn't respond. "If you're going to wake me up, you'd better have a good reason, Missy, otherwise I hope that Lamb Chop haunts you for the rest of your life."

"Ack! Rory, no fair, you know how much that sock scares me!" Lorelai whined. She sighed. "No, Rory, I just got here because we were driving and the truck died and so we took it to the shop and sat by the side of the Mississippi River and just talked, all night, just talking. Rory… it was…" Lorelai let out a happy sigh and smiled to herself. "You're a smart kid, you know that?"

"I knew you'd realize it eventually."

"No I meant…"

"I know what you meant." Lorelai bites her lower lip, still picturing the look in Luke's eyes as they talked and hearing the tender tones of his voice. "So don't wait too long."

"To long?" Lorelai asked.

"To tell him."


	5. Chapter 5

"Are your eyes closed?" Luke asked as he pulled up.

"Yes, jeez, can't you just trust me for once?"

"I would except for the fact you told me not more than five minutes ago that I didn't need to keep my hands in the 10 and 2 position on the steering wheel."

"I'd know you were doing that even if I could see. Do you really think I don't know you that well by now?" Lorelai griped.

Luke shook his head, not wanting to get into it with her, just wanting to preserve this moment for what it was. He got out of the car and walked around and opened her door for her, reaching and taking her hand to help her out. He was a little surprised when her fingers curled around his as well. Did she know she was doing that? Did she consciously hold his hand as well or was it just a natural reflex?

"Lorelai, get out," he tells her. She bites her lip, her free hand searching and he takes it in his other hand, helping her out. Staring down at her standing in front of him, blindfolded, biting her lip in that cute way she had, gripping his hands in hers, it was like she was placing all of herself completely in his hands, her safety, her life, everything. For a moment he considered lowering his head to kiss her lips and pressing her back against the door, kissing her with everything in him, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against him until she's practically enveloped by him. He had to close his eyes and take a deep breath, willing himself to think of something else, Kirk or Liz or sheep or something.

"Luke, let's get the Patty Hearst act over with."

"Oh, uh, right," Luke stuttered, realizing that she was probably confused as why he was just standing there. "You ready?"

"Better believe it."

He reached behind her head and untied the blindfold. "Well?" he asked, but instead of looking over at where they were, she stared up into his eyes, getting lost in them for a moment. "Lorelai?"

She shook her head quickly to shake off the fog that was trying to envelope her brain. "Ummmm…" She frowned, looking around, needing this time both to clear her mind and to figure out where she was. Noticing a sign to her left, she squinted, reading it. "Graceland? You took me to Graceland?"

Luke nodded, a serious expression on his face. "I took you to Graceland." She nodded, seemingly impressed, looking back over at the house.

"I… I don't know what to say. I'm… speechless."

He chuckled. "Will wonders never cease." She glares at him but the glitter in his eyes only makes her smile. "Come on, I'll tell you about it as we walk." Letting go of one of her hands, he lead her towards the house, still holding one of her hands in his. It seemed perfectly natural to both of them, holding hands just like a real couple, just walking and talking and holding hands as if that's what they did everyday. Both were trying not to concentrate on the electricity shooting up their arms and down their spines from the slight contact of their hands. They were both smiling, looking at the house and each other as they walked, hoping the slight flush of their faces meant nothing. "My father loved Elvis."

"Really?" He nodded.

"Yeah, when my dad drove down to Alabama to ask my mom's parents for her hand in marriage, he stopped here on his way home. You know, it wasn't a big place then, he had only come out with Jailhouse Rock a few years before."

"You mean it wasn't covered in crazy Elvis fans? I couldn't imagine it."

"My dad was a crazy Elvis fan," Luke reminded her. Lorelai pressed her lips together, giving him an apologetic look. "He really was. When my dad bought the house for my mom, he had the lyrics to I Want You, I Need You, I Love You, framed and put in their bedroom."

"That's so sweet, Luke." Luke shrugged. "Seriously, it's like he was combining his two loves. And he drove all the way to Alabama to ask for your mother's hand in marriage? He sounds like an amazing guy."

Luke smiled to himself. "He was. He really loved my mother. He wasn't a very expressive guy but he tried his best because he loved my mom so much." Luke looked down at the ground, seeing his few memories of his parents happy in his mind. Lorelai gave him his time until he looked over at her. "Come on, I want to show you something." She nodded as he pulled towards her towards the entrance.

She wandered around the front entrance as he bought tickets to the tour, just imagining for a moment what it was like for Lisa Marie to have lived there. She almost felt bad for Lisa Marie, the place didn't seem homey at all. It was huge and lovely and beautiful but not the kind of place she ever wanted to call home, it was nothing like the feeling of living in the Crap Shack.

"Hey, you ready?" Luke asked, walking up behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and flashed him a quick smile. "Come on." He took her hand, leading her away, as if it was just normal for them to hold hands as they walked, and maybe that's what it was becoming. It seemed to both of them that it was just natural to hold hands as they walked, as if they'd been doing it for years.

At one point on the tour, Luke pulled Lorelai to a stop in front of a framed poem. "Elvis was a good father to Lisa Marie. I mean, through the divorce with Priscilla, his many mistresses, his drug abuse, when it came to Lisa, she came first. He loved his little girl." Lorelai nodded, waiting for the point Luke was trying to make. "Anyways, for Lisa's fourth birthday, Elvis wrote this poem for her, The Priceless Gift, he promised his love for her for always. My mom, she loved the idea of this, she thought there was nothing better a father could give to his child than a promise to love her for always."

"Your mother was a very smart woman." Luke rubbed his hand over his mouth, feeling himself tear up at the idea.

"My dad was a great father, but again, he wasn't that good at expressing it."

"It doesn't seem liked you needed it. Luke, you love your dad so much, I can just tell."

"It's gotta be hard, I mean maybe it wasn't for Priscilla, but it's gotta be hard to be a single parent. After my mom died, my dad tried so hard to be there for me and Liz, but I don't know, I think he blamed himself for losing Liz."

"He shouldn't have. Being a parent is hard."

Luke chuckled, shaking his head at her. "You should talk, you're a great parent."

Lorelai pursed her lips as she shrugged, brushing her hair away from her face. "I don't know. It's not modesty or anything, but what Rory and I have, it's not a normal mother/daughter kind of relationship. I mean I was sixteen when I had her."

"I know."

"Yeah I know you know, but it's just… we're more best friends than mother and daughter. I think if I ever did it again…"

"Parenthood?" She nodded.

"Yeah, I would do it differently if I was ever a mother again." Luke nodded, watching her face as she gave him a tightlipped smile that could mean a variety of things.

He took a deep breath, before he spoke again. "Do you want to?" He cleared his throat. "Do you want to be a mother again?"

"Sure," Lorelai answered without even thinking about it. Then she smiled and blushed. "You know, do it the right way, like Donna Reed would appreciate. Don't you want to have kids someday?"

Luke shrugged, suddenly a little uncomfortable. "I don't know. I mean…" He grimaced. "It seems odd that I would but I guess… if I found the right… partner, or whatever." He tried to shrug it off, glancing back at the poem. "Anyways, that's why I brought you here."

"I'm glad you did. I mean, I wasn't sure at first why Graceland unless you were going to start singing Heartbreak Hotel and do that weird little dance Elvis always did." The look of amusement on Luke's face made Lorelai laugh.

"Lorelai, I want you to know this, I don't really talk about this kind of stuff with people much."

"Your parents?" He nodded. "Oh Luke, you didn't have to…" He covered her mouth with his free hand before she could finish her statement.

"I wanted to," he assured her. "I guess, it's just easy with you. I'm sorry I didn't before."

She stared up at him for a moment, really hearing his words. He was right, it went the same for her. Somehow just hanging with him, just talking, shooting the breeze, however you call it, it was so easy, something she had been unable to do ever before, open up, let someone see her vulnerabilities, her worries, her fears, but it was so simple with Luke.

After discovering what he had been keeping inside, his grief due to the loss of his parents, she suddenly feared she had been saying all the wrong things. "Oh Luke, I'm so sorry. Here I am going on and on about how much I dislike my parents and can't get along with them and you're just standing there comforting me and listening to me and not shaking me and saying 'Lorelai! At least you have them around!'"

He cocked his head knowingly, taking her other hand in his. "Lorelai, I didn't think that for a second." She smiled softly. "Was it really that bad?"

"It was…" Lorelai frowned, considering her words.

He watches her as she chews softly on her lower lip in a way that he's learned indicates she's having trouble coming up with what to say. Maybe she doesn't really know how much she wants to say. "Lorelai, you don't have to tell me about it if you don't want."

"No," she responded quickly. "I…. I want to show you. When we're done here, it's my turn to pick the place."

"We're going to Hartford?" She shook her head.

"Nope, even worse."

"Do I have to be blindfolded?" Luke asked. She laughed.

"We'll see."

The ride had a very different atmosphere than the drive to Graceland, the tension was obliterated, that is the fear of saying the wrong thing disappeared, the sexual tension seemed to be increasing exponentially to both as the hours passed. They both did their best to ignore it, chatting like old times about everything and nothing at the same time.

His only desire had been to make her laugh, to watch as she threw back her head, her mouth open wide as she giggled in a delicate, but oh so lovely, way. To hear that musical sound of her laughter that came to him like the sweetest melody he had ever heard. _Her voice is full of money._ He heard the words in his head as he listened to her response to his latest gruff reply and for a moment, wondered where on earth the words had come from. They were so familiar but seemed so distant in his mind, like he'd have to search for the next week to be able to pull from the furthest reaches of his mind the reference of those words.

As her laughter quieted, she glanced over at him, taking her eyes off the road for only a second. She found that he was looking at her, but not staring as she had often found, his gaze now was soft, distant, and yet at the same time, so very sexy. Her heart fluttered deep with in her chest and she could do little to stop her cheeks from flushing. "What?" she asked, trying to take the focus off of herself.

Things had been going well for them on this trip, almost more than good, like something past friendship. It was working out so well. He didn't want to spoil it by telling her what he was really thinking. So he just smiled and tried to think of a way to get the focus off of what had been going through his mind. "I was just thinking how nice it would be if you let me put in my new Elvis tape rather than whatever this junk is," he responded. He watched as she slumped her shoulders, giving him a sorrowful look.

"You know, I'm still surprised that they had cassette tapes, apparently Graceland still lives in the past with you," she teased, with a slight arch to her eyebrow. "Besides, there's nothing better than Bono."

"Yeah Bono's a good person. I'm pretty all right with him," Luke admitted.

"High praise from you."

"He does a lot of charity work, gives a lot of money to people, unlike many people in those ridiculous rock bands you like."

She scoffed, trying to keep her gaze on the road rather than the, now irresistible, man sitting to her right. "Are you making fun of Jerry Garcia?"

"No, of course not, he helps out with those kids." Lorelai couldn't help but giggle at this.

"You mean Jerry's kids?" she asked, trying to bait him, but he seemed unaware what she was going for.

"Yeah."

She shook her head in wonder. He never ceased to amaze her with his lack of pop culture knowledge, so extremely small in comparison to her own. Something that had always interested her in guys, how similar they were to herself, but maybe those weren't the important things. It wasn't enough to have similar interests and fascinations as people when they were on two completely different paths. While Luke's hobbies were far different from her own, his personality, his true character, a person who kept everyone at arms length, who hid within in the character traits that kept people at a distance, whose heart was only searching for that one person to let in, in all those ways Luke was like the male version of herself. He got her, she was sure of that.

"Jerry's kids is a foundation for Muscular Dystrophy set up by Jerry Lewis," Lorelai informed Luke, watching his face go lax.

"Oh," was all he could manage, knowing that his attempt at showing her his vast knowledge of the pop culture realm she knew she so much about had failed. He could only wonder if she wished he was more like her, if she was possibly even bored by him at times. But the shine in her eyes told a different story. "You know, I'm just going to put in Elvis."

"We could play the license plate game," Lorelai suggested. He chuckled.

"Okay, but not the way we've been playing it."

"Luke Danes, are you getting into this game of ours?" she teased, and then considered that her words could have two meanings. It was like a little game they were playing, their flirting, holding hands at the museum, their looks, like a little way to play off each other, a way to get as close to being a real couple without actually opening their mouths to suggest that this might be what they both wanted.

He wondered for a moment what she meant by game but figured he'd go for the platonic meaning of the word. "Yeah, I just thought we've listed the capitals eighty times by now, let's try something different."

"You have a suggestion?"

He shrugged. How far would she want to take their new relationship? Their friendship that had now become more open than ever before? Was she willing to open to him completely? "Well you take first letter of the license plate. See… GBR, so G and you have to relate it to something in your life." She nodded and waited patiently and he realized she wanted him to finish his example. "Uh… g…umm…"

"You wanted to start this game and you can't think of an example?" she taunts him.

Well he knew she wasn't the only one who wouldn't back down from a dare. Looking at her posture, he couldn't help but perceive that she hoped whatever he was going to say, when he opened up it would be all the way. "G is for my grandmother, my mother's mother. She outlived my mother by a couple years. I remember she had this smell, like apricots and cinnamon, I think it was her powder or lotion, but whatever it was… I've never eaten an apricot since the day she died."

She glanced over at him, a flicker of sadness in her eyes, but more than that, empathy, sympathy. It wasn't the pity he always feared he'd receive when he finally found that person he could open his heart to and trust for always, what she was offering was something like respect for his honesty and willingness to let her see everything and understand him completely, it was honor for those past and heartfelt affection for all those that had affected him over the years.

He cleared his throat, knowing full well how exposed he was at them moment. "It's…uh… your turn." Lorelai grinned and glanced out the window.

"JDE," she said softly. "J…. for Jerry Manlow."

"That name sounds familiar." Lorelai nodded.

"He owned the Crap Shack before Rory and I. Luke, I love that house. It's the only place that ever felt like home to me, whatever that means." She smiled softly, shrugging. "All I've been for so long is Rory's mother, that's what I've been defined as. And within that house, that's all I'll ever be. For so long, Luke, I've been content with that. I love Rory, she's my daughter. But she's in California and then she'll be at Harvard and then the world. I need to find a new way to define myself, I need there to be more to me than just Rory's mother. I guess that's why I want to take those business classes." Luke nodded, understandingly, watching her slowly gnaw her lower lip, knowing there was more she wanted to say. "I guess that's why I wanted to go on this trip," she admitted, with a quick glance over at him to see if he got her meaning. The flash of solace in his eyes, along with the quick nod of his head, told her all she needed to know.

As Lorelai pulled into a space in the parking lot, Luke could not keep his eyes off the view across the street. Before him was a large black steel gate, with a large green lawn leading up to a white palace-size house with large white columns and an array of flowers surrounding the beautiful, and what looks like marble, porch in front. Lorelai glanced over at Luke and noticed his fixed gaze. She reached over and squeezed his arm.

"Lorelai, please tell me that's not what your parents' house looks like," Luke said, making her laugh.

"No, my parents have money, but they're not Vanderbilts." Luke nodded, slowly drawing in a breath and letting it out. "Would it scare you more if I told you this was only a summer house?" He looked over at her, disgust written all over his face. She pats his hand. "Come on."

They walk around the truck, Lorelai taking Luke's hand as they head towards the house. "So you took me to Newport?" She nodded. "Why?"

"You'll see," she replied in a serious tone and then smiled at him. "I thought about taking you to Rosecliff. Such a history, they filmed True Lies there, you know."

"True Lies? Another reference of yours I don't know?" She laughed.

"Great Gatsby too. Ah, Robert Redford." She sighed happily, but Luke frowned, the words Great Gatsby circling his brain.

"Her voice is full of money… _It was full of money, that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it," Luke said, the words coming to him before he knew where they were coming from. Lorelai looked up at him, surprised by the words Luke just uttered. "He called her the golden girl."_

_"Gatsby?" _

_Luke nodded, unknowingly stopping in his tracks, his hand forcing Lorelai to pause as well. "My mom, she loved that book. She used to read parts of it to me before I went to bed at night, over and over again we went through that book. After awhile I could practically recite the thing from memory." His thumb was tracing patterns on the back of Lorelai's hand as he talked. He was concentrating on breathing, still hearing his mother's soft voice in his head, feeling her comforting presence. No, not his mother's comforting presence, Lorelai's. She was there. She was standing right there, looking at him in that way that made his heart ache and he still couldn't believe it, he not only had the ability to open up to her, to trust her, but she wanted him to. She had that radiance about her that Fitzgerald talked about, she was his golden girl. "Anyways, we should go buy tickets," he finally said. She nodded and let him lead her to the ticket booth along the drive._

_They got tickets and headed out on the audio tour of Marble House. Lorelai watched Luke's face go from amazement to disgust as he walked from the front hall to the ballroom. The place was so beautiful, each piece ornate, the expensive marble walls etched with such detail that Lorelai couldn't decide if she was awestruck or appalled either. When they reached Alva Vanderbilt's bedroom and then walked into Cornelius's, she could hear Luke snort. Giving him a look, she removed her head phones and he did the same. _

_"They had separate bedrooms?" he asked, dismayed by the idea that this couple that lived in this house a century ago, that had three children together, didn't share a bed every night._

_"Luke, marriages were different back then. They married because they had money and they wanted more money and they wanted to keep the money among people with money. Rich people are crazy, I swear they still do that. It's ridiculous and stupid and that's what would have ended up happening if I had married Christopher," Lorelai ranted, not really realizing where she was ending her rant until she stopped talking. He watched her eyes go wide in realization of what she just said. As she bit her lower lip, hearing her words all over again, he rubbed her arm comfortingly. She took a deep breath. "Let's finish this," she finally decided and put her head phones back on._

_After the tour ended they walked outside and checked out the tea house in back of the house. "Ug, look at this, all the money in the world and they spend it on this. It's beautiful but garish when you look at that!" Lorelai exclaims, flinging her arm back at Marble House. Seeing that Lorelai's about to lose it, Luke grabs her hand and pulls her across the lawn to a bench that over looks the cape and sits, pulling her down next to him. She huffs, shaking her head. "It's just… money's just a toy to them. The rich. All the things they could do with it and they spend it on tea houses and another car and a sitting room that they never use. They think that's enough to make them happy." Luke nodded, just letting her blow off steam, squeezing her hand. She rubbed her forehead, trying to calm herself. _

_"Lorelai, was it really that bad?" She looked up at him, a pained look in her eyes and he could see the truth without her even opening her mouth. "That's why you brought me here?"_

_"You heard what they said. Consuelo Vanderbilt loved Rutherford, she loved him but she wasn't allowed to marry him because he wasn't rich, he didn't belong in their world. So she was forced into an unhappy marriage for years that she ended up getting annulled in the end. See that's how it goes in their world, the rich have to marry the rich."_

_"Is that how it was for your parents?" She shook her head._

_"No," she said softly. "But they were lucky. They were rich and in love. But that wasn't for me. I didn't fall in love with someone from their world. I…" She bit her lower lip, letting the sentence just trail off. "It just hurts, Luke. Their house was so cold and unfeeling. I mean I know they loved me, but they never told me." Luke could do little but squeeze her hand and just let her know that he was there, hearing her voice break as she finally admitted the true reason that her memories of her childhood pained her so much. _

She let the seconds pass by, trying to calm herself, trying to let the comfort of Luke's hand soothe herself. Finally she wanted to see the consolation in his eyes, not just feel it on her hand and looked up at him. She caught him staring back at her and with a blink of her eyes finally realized what she had been seeing all along in his gaze. He was seeing past her blue eyes, dark hair and creamy complexion, past the pert smile she kept fixed on her face and the crinkle of the corners of her eyes that had become permanent after all those years. He saw more than that. He could see her hopes and dreams, her worries and fears, everything that she had kept hidden for so long from her parents, her boyfriends, Christopher, Sookie, even Rory, every bit of vulnerability within her, all of her weaknesses, he could see. He had seen it all this time, even before she had opened up about the sorrows in her heart. He saw it all and loved it all, loved her even. What an awe-inspiring feeling it was to know she had found her fountain of youth, her unconditional love, hidden deep within this man sitting mere inches from her. Now all she wanted to do was let him know that she understood, that she could see the same within him, that she loved the same within him.

Without realizing it, she had let her face drift towards him and she lifted her eyelids in hope that he could see what she wanted, but his eyes lids were already closing. As she closed her eyes as well, she felt the light brush of his lips against hers, soft and tender but intense, an amazing feeling like nothing she had ever experienced before. She supposed that was because for the first time she was kissing a man she loved, who loved her. Before her mind could ponder this any further she felt his fingers gently run over her upper arm and her mind clouded. All she could do was fall into it, press her lips back against his, needing to feel more of him, and she let her hand drift to his knee, possibly even higher.

He was caught up in the power of the kiss, climbing up the ladder of passion with each passing millisecond. Every inch of him was numb except for the parts of him where he could feel her delicate touch, her hand, her lips, the tickle of her hair on his face from the breeze of the cool air of the night sky. His only conscious thought was of the loud thump of his heart within his chest at the feeling of finally giving in, finally kissing her, the woman he had desired for so long. As he glided his hand down her arm to the curve of her waist, she shivered and let out a soft moan, her lips parting just enough to allow him to slide his tongue over her lower lip.

She reached out with her hand, grabbing onto whatever her fingers could reach, the smooth cotton of his flannel, holding tightly and pulling herself closer to him, pulling him closer to her. Parting her lips further, she allowed him to slip his tongue in her mouth, as he gently massaged her tongue with his own. Her brain was past full cognizance. She was light headed, dizzy, possibly beyond her last human breath and thus, slowly and reluctantly pulled back, still only mere centimeters between them.

He could hear her soft pant and feel the increase in pressure of her hand on his thigh. His eyes slowly opened to look down at her, but her eyelids were still closed, seemingly heavy form the intensity of the kiss or kisses, he wasn't sure how many to count that as, in his book it counted more than the thousands of kisses he had shared throughout his life. During these few precious moments neither moved, both letting the fog covering their brains slowly dissipate to an aura-like sensation.

Still breathing hard he pressed his lips to her forehead, sensing she needed to be soothed, needing a moment to calm himself as well. She pulled away slightly to allow herself to gaze up into his eyes, trying to keep herself from being overcome by the emotion she saw in the deep blue of his irises. "Luke," she said softly in a husky voice he had never heard before but made his name sound like a scene from Logan's Run.

"Hmmm...?" he grunted, his mind still not completely clear and his soft voice comforted. Suddenly she realized that sitting there on that bench with Luke, his arms around her, his head bent so that his forehead laid against hers, she never felt so safe and secure, so at home in all her life, and she was miles away from her actual home. This is what it must be like to be in love, she realized.

That was the instant she decided that what she was running way from these past two weeks no longer existed. Her loneliness and feeling of emptiness within that town without Rory, she didn't feel it anymore. Because when she went home, Luke would be there, just as he had always been for the past two years, but now she knew that she could trust in that. "Luke," she repeated, now having figured out exactly what she wanted to say. "Take me home."


	6. Chapter 6

In the two weeks since they arrived back in Stars Hollow, things returned to normal. At least, somewhat. Lorelai went back to working at the Independence Inn as usual. Luke went back to his normal days at the diner. It was the time in between, the times that they weren't at work or sleeping, those were where the real changes emerged. She spent more and more time at the diner, lingering for hours at a time over cups of coffee and a cheeseburger. Sometimes just watching him work. Sometimes he'd get a break and would sit down with her and they would just chat, tell stories or jokes, banter as they always had but with a tender gaze that was new. There were also the little looks, the light touches of their hands, the quick kisses they shared in the hi's and goodbye's.

The evenings were all spent together. Luke took Lorelai to dinner at Sniffy's, a small restaurant owned by the closest thing Luke had to family, Buddy and Maisy, close friends of his parents. Lorelai convinced Luke to go to the Black, White and Read Movie Theater with her for a viewing of Gone With The Wind, which Luke proclaimed the worst 5 hours of his life, but secretly knew that there was nothing better than sitting on that couch with Lorelai in his arms. Then there were the simple nights, when Luke would pick up some food at the diner or make some at Lorelai's house and they'd just eat and gab. Afterwards they'd just lay on Lorelai's couch, Lorelai's legs on Luke's lap or Luke's arm around Lorelai's shoulders, and they'd play their newest version of the license plate game. Just running through the alphabet over and over as they opened up more and more about things that they never expected to tell anyone. They were finally realizing how wonderful it could be to find their best friend in the one they love.

Not that either had yet admitted their love to the other. Both were content just to let nature take its course, to take their time working through the relationship, just letting themselves slowly become a part of each other's life without needing to use those three special words to throw themselves deep within each other's life. For the time being, those small changes, those wonderful changes, to their everyday life were enough that they felt comfortable enough to be at home, to be together, to let go of the sadness they both had been feeling for so long.

On this night, just an hour before Lorelai had to leave to go pick up Rory at the airport, they had managed a small together time. This time Luke had made dinner for them up in his apartment, seeing as she had so little time and he still had to go back and work in the diner after she left. "This is nice," Lorelai said as she finally set her fork down, having eaten all the food on her plate. She smiled at Luke, unable to keep the sheer delight of just spending this time with him off her face.

"Sorry I had to cook here, instead of at your place."

"It's okay."

He shook his head giving her a knowing look. "Not for me. Your kitchen is better." She wrinkled her nose cutely as she grinned.

"But it's nice anyways, I mean it was nice that we got this time, since I have to go get Rory soon anyways."

"So this is it?" She furrowed her eyebrows. Was he breaking up with her already? "I mean, Rory's home today and then what?"

"Well, uh, I guess our little twosome becomes a threesome," she assured him.

"But is she…"

"Rory's fine with it. No, she's more than fine. She's ecstatic." Lorelai grinned to let him know that she was both thrilled by this and serious about Rory's feelings on the subject. She watched the wheels turn in Luke's mind, knowing that he was slowly processing the fact that within the next few hours he was going to have begin to share her with Rory. The hold he had over her, keeping her from being scared or lost, would be gone because Rory would be there to replace him. Narrowing her eyes like she's dissecting him, she could see the truth in his expression, that he was afraid of losing her, that he was afraid she wouldn't want or need him anymore. Taking his hands in hers as she stood up, she pulled him up to face her. "Luke," she said softly, playing with his fingers, trying to think of how best to explain what was going through her mind. The way he was looking at her, like he feared she was doing what she always did, pulling a 'cut and run', Lorelai knew she had to get these words out soon. "I just… you should know… the thing is…" She stammered and quickly shook her head. "With you, I don't feel so alone anymore, and I know as long as we're together, I never will."

His breath caught in his throat with the force of her words. Sure, Lorelai had admitted how different their relationship was from hers with anyone else and he had seen her smile more in the past two weeks than almost anytime in their three year relationship. But this, this strong statement, her words telling him that she needed him now and forever, this was something different. All he could think to do in response is lean down and capture her lips with his. Sometimes actions speak louder than words, he figured.

Lorelai let him silence her for a few minutes with his lips, opening her mouth to kiss him languidly, knowing that these were kisses she had never experienced before Luke. Though his kisses weren't what made her fall in love with him, they did manage to elicit sensations all over her body that made her feel weak and adored all at the same time.

Finally, with a wink she pulled back, her hands still in his. She led him over to the couch, where they sat, Luke's arm instantly wrapping around her shoulders and she leaned into him, playing with his hand with both of hers. He sighed, kissing the side of her head. "Give me a letter," he said. She glanced up at him, wonder in her eyes and then smiled, knowing exactly what he was getting at.

"A." He chuckled.

"Trying to make it easy for me, are ya?" She shook her head, grinning, the corners of her eyes crinkling. He nodded, giving himself a moment to think. "ABBA."

She frowned, wondering what on earth he was trying to tell her. "My favorite 70s band?" Luke nodded. "And that relates how?"

"It was the first music you put on the car. Dancing Queen, right?" She nodded. "Reminded me of you." Lorelai cocked her head, looking both flattered and flabbergasted at the same time.

"Yeah, but how is that a memory?"

"Lorelai, we created memories on that trip together. Sure, they don't go as far back as Watergate but they're still memories," Luke explained. Lorelai couldn't help but feel her heart fill a little more, everything that this man said, every amazing sentence, even teasing, just lit her up inside. She wasn't sure how he did it.

"Give me a letter," Lorelai requested.

"R." He watched as her smile just grew and knew that she barely had to think before responding.

"The river. You know, Luke that night was amazing. I wanted to be so mad at you, for not opening up, not showing yourself to me like I had. I wanted to be mad about the truck breaking even though it wasn't your fault. But that night changed everything. It was like that walk that Edward and Elinor take in Sense and Sensibility. They really opened up to one another."

"Lorelai, I-" She clamped a hand over his mouth before he could finish telling her that he had no idea what she was talking about. Slowly she removed her hand, looking into his eyes, seeing that this was her moment. She licked her lips.

"Luke, that was the night I fell in love with you," Lorelai said softly, half-hoping he couldn't hear her. Her gaze flicked down to his Adam's apple as she watched him visibly swallow. Gnawing on her lower lip, an uncomfortable feeling came over her. "Sorry, I think that may have been too soon."

He touched his finger to her chin lightly, but applied enough pressure to lift her chin and force her gaze on his. "Lorelai, I knew I loved you before I kissed you, possibly before we ever left on that trip." There, he said it. Sometimes words are also helpful.

Lorelai closed the distance between them, kissing him with such intensity, such passion, that Luke could do little but wrap his arms around her, pulling her closer to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, just using her lips and fingers to show him how much she loved him. "Luke," she gasped between kisses. "This is more than I've ever looked for."

When she noticed the passengers heading into the airport over at the gate where Rory's plane was supposed to arrive, Lorelai had to hurry up and run over. She had known that her few extra minutes that she had spent with Luke would probably make her late, but she couldn't help it. As much as she was dying to see Rory again after these long four weeks, she just wanted to savor the last few moments when no one else in the world mattered but her and Luke.

She reached the area just as a tall, thin brunette that looked quite familiar to her, walked out. "Rory!" Lorelai called, waving her hands high in the air. Rory's head snapped up immediately, her eyes searching out her mother in the distance.

"Mom!" Rory cried, running towards Lorelai, throwing herself at her mother, holding on as Lorelai wrapped her arms around her daughter to keep them from falling. They hugged tight for a time that could not be measured, but was long enough that each felt assured that she was really missed. "I missed you!"

"Oh Kid, one gigantic ditto from me to you," Lorelai responded, making Rory giggle.

After another moment, they finally let go over each other, allowing Lorelai a chance to drag her eyes over Rory, as if inspecting her. Rory kind of blushed and looked away. "Mom, I'm still me."

"Yeah, you are," Lorelai said softly. "A tanner, more freckled but thankfully not bleach blonde, you." She winked at Rory. "So the flight was all right?"

Rory nodded. "Sure was, they showed Christmas In Connecticut again. I swear they must have a thing for Barbara Stanwyck or a contract with the devil to show that movie both flying there and back."

"Oh no, Sweets, if they had a contract with the devil they would have made you watch The Cable Guy again." Rory groaned. Lorelai shakes her finger at her daughter. "Oh no, you can't complain, you forced me to see that." Rory raised her hands in the air in submission. "Come on, let's go get your bags and then we can pick up something at Al's," Lorelai said wrapping an arm around her daughter and kissing Rory's head, but Rory stubbornly refused to move.

"Al's?" Rory asked like that was the worst idea Lorelai ever had.

"Sure, you like Al's. It's Philippines week there."

Rory shook her head, her face screwed up like she was confused. "Mom, what about Luke's?" Lorelai's eyebrows raised and Rory wondered if it was possible that her mother paled a bit. "Mom?"

"You – you want to go to Luke's?" Lorelai asked as if it was an odd request, after three years of eating and drinking coffee there almost daily.

"Mom!" Rory chastised her. "Are you scared of taking me to Luke's now that he's your boyfriend?" Lorelai bit her bottom lip, having been wondering this herself. "Mom, I'm totally okay with this, you know that right?" Lorelai sighed, and chuckled to herself.

"Funny, I feel like I just had this conversation with him." Lorelai and Rory shared a look, coming to an understanding through their eyes. Finally Lorelai gave in and nodded, squeezing Rory to her. "So spending time with Christopher was good?"

"Yeah, I mean, he tries. But it's not the same as being here with you and Luke."

"Me and Luke?" Rory just rolled her eyes. "Rory?"

"What, I can't hang out at his diner everyday and not miss him when I'm gone?"

Lorelai stared at her young daughter. For years, Rory had complained about Christopher, whining that he never came to visit, crying that he would forget to call or send birthday card, begging for Lorelai to make him let her into his life. Now, just when Christopher seemed to finally be maturing, enough to possibly be a father to his child, Rory no longer felt the same. It seemed to Lorelai that her daughter wanted to spend time with her father, but no longer needed him as a father figure, no longer needed him as the male role model in her life. Through all of this thinking, Lorelai realized, Luke hadn't just become a home for herself, but for Rory as well. It was even more apparent to her than it had been before that Luke was the one she had been looking for all along. To love her. To love her daughter. To love everything and everyone in her life. And to be there when he was all she had in the world.

"Yeah Hun, it's okay," Lorelai agreed. "Now let's go get your bags so that Luke's not closed before we get there."

"Mom, I'm sure he'd let us in anyways." Lorelai smiled to herself and nodded. Yes. Yes, he would.

"Lu-uke!" Lorelai called as she opened the door to the diner, pushing Rory inside ahead for her. "Honey, we're home!" Luke glanced over his shoulder at her, giving her a dirty look.

Rory grabbed Lorelai's arm and dragged her to the table by the window. Luke couldn't help but smile. She had come back. He had tried his hardest not to be worried about the change that was sure to occur in their relationship with the return of Rory, especially after Lorelai's sincere words just a few hours before, but still the fear had remained. Until now.

Happily he grabbed the handles of two coffee mugs off the counter and carried the coffee pot with him over to the table where Lorelai and Rory were sitting. "So…. Rory, the plane landed on time?" he asked, shooting Lorelai a wink before focusing his attentions on Rory as he poured them coffee.

"Oh sure, plane landed on time, although someone was almost late," Rory said pointedly. Lorelai grins, looking up at Luke, who visibly pales. She reaches over and lightly touches his arm. "Hey Luke, I'm dying for one of your fantastic cheeseburgers. I swear I dreamed of them when I was in California."

"You – you did?" Rory nodded. "You got it. On the house." He glanced at Lorelai. "You too?"

"What a guy, he anticipates my needs," Lorelai flirted. Luke just shook his head and walked away. Lorelai winked at Rory. "Hey, you mind if I…?" Lorelai motioned with her head over at Luke.

"Sure, but don't take so long that my burger gets cold."

"You got it."

Lorelai pushed herself out of her chair and walked over to where Luke stood behind the counter. She grabbed his arm and pulled him behind her into the back storage room. "What are you doing? Lorelai!" Instead of responding, she cupped his face her hands and kissed him hard on the mouth. Though he wondered her reasoning, the sensation from the warm feeling of her lips pressed against his quickly clouded his brain beyond any sense of comprehension. Luke's hands quickly went to Lorelai's hips, pulling her closer to him as her arms went around his neck, her fingers finding their usual place, as of the past two weeks, in his hair. He moaned into her mouth as she opened her mouth to him, their tongues dueling.

"Luke," she panted as she pulled back. She laid a hand on his chest, gasping for breath.

"What – what was that for?" he managed, gasping for breath as well. Lorelai grinned.

"Just wanted to make sure you were aware that this didn't change things. Okay, gotta freshen up, I'm sure you're wearing more lipstick than I am right now." On that note, Lorelai turned on her heel and walked out.

Luke stood there for a second, just staring at the doorway. Well if he had any fears left, that was all erased. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth to remove any trace of lipstick she had left. Walking out of the storeroom, he spotted Rory sitting alone at the table. He grabbed the two plates of cheeseburgers and walked over to her. "Here ya go Ma'am," he said with a soft smile.

"Thanks Luke." He wavered for a moment, just lingering by the table. "You want to join us?" Rory finally asked.

"Well I don't want to…."

"No, no, of course, sit. Join us." Rory patted the seat next to her. With only a slight hesitation, Luke sat down. He glanced over towards the bathroom and the back at Rory. "Luke? Did you always want to be with my mom?" Luke took a deep breath. How much should he tell Rory? Would she think he was crazy or obsessed if he told her the truth?

Rory watched him struggle for what to say and just knew the answer. Then again, she had known it all along. Long before her mother and Luke had probably ever considered it, she had seen the truth behind the looks they gave each other. "Luke, why did you wait so long?"

"Well I – I thought. I thought she deserved a prince. You know, a prince who would treat her like the angel she was, who would listen to her and understand, who would cheer her up when she was sad, who would laugh at all her jokes and pleasure in the moments of just being with her. I'm – I mean – I'm not a prince."

"But you're all those things to her. Luke you don't have to be a prince to be with my mother. You just have to be… well… you." Rory gave Luke a shy smile, hoping that he understood how pleased she was with the new relationship. He nodded, smiling back at her.

Lorelai walked back over to the table, settling herself in the chair across from Rory and next to Luke. "Ah, a cheeseburger in paradise!" Lorelai exclaimed. Rory giggled.

Instead of taking a bite of cheeseburger, Lorelai wrapped her hand around Luke's hand that was set closest to her. He quickly interlaced their fingers as he chatted casually with Rory. They were chatting, like two old casual friends, close friends, who were intimately settled into each other's life. It was like this was the way it had always been. As Lorelai looked from her daughter to the man she loved, she could only think that this was the way it should have always been. She was settled. She was at home. She certainly was eating a cheeseburger in paradise.


End file.
